3D Weather Data Visualization in Second Life

Second Life Insider reports that this November, a weather visualization project is being rolled out in Second Life. The project “demonstrates Second Life as a powerful visualization tool for real-time data.”

That’s the beauty of virtual environments–they enable users to interact with data in multiple dimensions.

Now wouldn’t it be amazing to do data mining in such a fashion? I’d love to get my hands on the Amazon purchaser database and model out buyer personas.

-Roland

Article: Top Ten Grammar Errors that Haunt Web Pages

This is worth reading: Top Ten Grammar Errors that Haunt Web Pages

Use Yahoo Answers for fielding simple questions

Your a marketer, you need some quick opinions and you have no budget for formal market research. What can you do?

Yahoo! Answers is an easy solution to add to your personal marketing arsenal.

It is a community of registered Yahoo! users that participate in answering questions asked by other Yahoo! users.

Benefits:

• Fielding a question is quick and easy to do.
• You have a wide range of categories and sub-categories to submit your question to. (i.e. Beauty & Style, Business & Finance, Entertainment & Music, Health, Society & Culture, Technology , plus many more.)
• You get relatively instant feedback.
• It’s free.

Limitations:

• You have limited ability to target demographically or geographically. Although Yahoo! collects self-reported information (i.e. gender, age, location) from its registered users, we users can’t take advantage of that to target our question(s). Basically, you can select a category of interest and add some descriptive text (e.g. “Teens only please”).
• The answers you get are in no way statistically significant. But at least you get verbatim opinions, which do have value and provide unanticipated insight. Also, some people post answers solely because it helps them gain more personal points, not because they want to be helpful or enjoy expressing their opinion.
• You’ll get the majority of responses in the first 12-24 hours, then little else. Since so many people are submitting questions, yours will be push down fairly quickly.
• Most responders do follow your instructions, but be prepared for some nasty responses. There are a small group of people who are beligerant, but you have the ability to report them to the Yahoo! Answers administrators.

Of course, nothing is completely “free.” You have to invest a bit of time…

• You need to create a Yahoo! acount
• You have to participate by answering other questions to earn points. Those points allow you to post your own questions and have advanced functionality.

In summary, if you need to get some quick opinions from the community, or validate an assumption, try posting your question on Yahoo! Answers.

I hope you find this useful.
-Roland

Laguna Beach episodes debute in Virtual World first

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the presence of brands in virtual worlds. The more I’ve dug into it, the more I’ve learned that savvy marketers are starting to use virtual worlds to debut their productions and products first, before introducing in the “real” world.

MediaPost.com reports today:

‘Laguna Beach’ Goes Online
MTV THIS WEEKEND WILL MAKE 10 episodes of “Laguna Beach” available online. MTV also will start debuting new episodes of the program on Virtual Laguna Beach–an online community site described by MTV as a “social networking virtual world”–two days before their air dates.

It’s interesting for marketers from several perspectives:

• Use the advance screening of episodes as an incentive to drive trial and use of Virtual Laguna Beach
• Use the virtual world to gauge reactions to the episodes, like a test audience, and possibly adjust before national broadcast
• Reach elusive teens and deliver video on demand content, where they want, when they want.

-Roland

Burger King to sell Xbox Video Games

AdRants.com reports: “Burger King Sells Subservient Chicken XBox Game”

Burger King to sell three Xbox/Xbox 360 video games that incorporate brand icons–including “Subservient Chicken,” originally the star of an online viral campaign. The games, “Pocketbike Racer,” “Big Bumpin’” and “Sneak King,” will sell for $3.99 each when consumers buy a meal.

What probably makes these work:

• For the low price, it would be hard to pass up. Although free would be more desireable.
• Although creepy, the “Burger King” is oddly aluring and I can’t quite turn away. (It’s almost like you have to stare at that car accident on the road.)
• They look fun and self mocking. (You can’t just stuff any stoggy looking corporate mascot into a bumper car.)

It’s not often that we see blatantly branded video games based on corporate mascots. (Just to be clear, I’m NOT talking about inserting corporate logos into video games, or games about movie characters, like the new Scarface game). If the Burger King Xbox games are successful, we may see the start of an interesting trend. Here are a few thought starter ideas to kick around:

• Wendy’s Wendy in her own Sims-like virtual game
• Kellog’s Tony the Tiger in his own urban jungle stalking adventure
• Brauny Man vs. Mr. Clean
• Tony the Tiger vs The Exxon Tiger combat game
• The Planter’s Peanut Dance Dance Revolution
• Chef Boyardi battles Bobby Flay
• Kool Aid brick busting adventure

What do you think? Post a comment whether you would or would not buy/play corporate branded games.

Inspirational trailer truck designs

I received a random email being sent around that showed very cool designs for European trailer trucks. I don’t know if these were ever produced for live trucks, but I thought these were great inspiration to make a brand/product pop.

Check it out (Sorry, I don’t know who to credit for these original designs):

Look for inspiration everywhere. Enjoy!
-Roland

Choose wisely when you register a domain name

Choosing a domain name is always a challenge. It can be frustrating to think of a clever name only to discover it has been registered by someone else.

Here are some general guidelines when selecting a domain name:

• Get a “.com” name whenever possible. (It’s simply more intuitive than .net, .org, .us, etc.)
• Choose a name that is meaningful. and easy to remember (i.e. www.businessweek.com, www.executive-coach.com)
• Include your major keyword(s) that describe your business, industry or subject of expertise. (i.e. www.mr-seo.com, www.searchenginewatch.com, www.executive-coach.com)
• Avoid using a hyphen, if possible, only because consumers are more likely to forget to include them.

Every domain registrar has a search tool. But here is a third-party tool I really like: ABAKUS Keyword Domain. I find it useful for adding my key terms and letting it generate available combinations for me.

If you feel strongly about buying an existing domain name, you need to make sure that the domain name you want doesn’t have any negative bagage attached to it:

• Has it been used for spamming or porn or bad search engine optimization tactics?
• Has it been used to clutter natural search results to lure people to click on ads?
• Has the domain been blocked by ISPs or added to email black lists?

If you are confident that the domain name has a good history, then it is worth investing in. SEO folks love to buy old domain names with good history because this is one factor (of many) to help with ranking high in search results.

Good luck!

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